7: Night train to Antibes

There is a tide in the affairs of man that if taken at the what’s it, leads to a cabin on the Riviera Sleeper, only not the French one, but the English one.  As I explained to my paramour, who has lately taken to calling herself my gentleman’s personal gentlewoman, there is in fact no night train to Antibes anymore, but that with a bit of imagination we could create our own. At which point I extracted a slim volume from my jacket pocket entitled Night Trains, The Rise and Fall of the Sleeper by one Andrew Martin, son of the railway and all round good egg.

We were at a table at the Market Café, idling away the evening hours before the arrival of the train.

‘You’re obviously enjoying your cod and chips. I’ll mark it up as a holiday treat. You do know there are plenty of posh seafood restaurants hereabouts that could offer you the same in more salubrious surroundings.’

‘So I would imagine, but not cod, chips and proper mushy peas, with a round of sliced-white bread and butter on the side and a mug of well stewed milky tea with two sugars to wash it all down. When you’ve had a real fish supper at Morecambe or Scarborough, it’s rather letting the side down to settle for anything less.’

‘I’ve noticed that; an occasional reference to real life in the North here, an old world cockney phrase slipped in there. What’s all that about?’

‘Just picked it up over the years I suppose, from some of the lads I hang about with. Ever asked yourself, how do I make more money at my job?’

‘Frequently.’

‘Leave the money from your salary in the bank, it becomes your savings. Never pay for anything you don’t have to, get as much of what you need written up as housekeeping. Then just keep a wad of cash made up from all your tips in your back pocket for emergencies.’

‘Just as you do with the Trust? So how do you cover this holiday? Don’t tell me you haven’t got some way.’

‘Well, some aspects of the journey will involve essential face to face café conferences with European colleagues.’

‘So give me the schedule.’

‘Leave Paddington early morning, underground to King’s Cross, walk back along the Euston Road for a brief appointment at the British Library, before boarding Eurostar at St. Pancras at about eleven I think…'

‘What are we doing at the British Library?’

‘Picking up an original document and walking out with it.’

‘I’ve never heard of that, I thought people spent hours searching for stuff and maybe got to copy some of it if they were lucky.’

‘Usually, but myself and a colleague are going to prove our identity, sign and then deprive the State of a significant historical document.’

‘How come?’

‘Because after a long and torturous legal process we have proved that we are the rightful owners of it, or strictly speaking, rightful owners of what the document refers to.’

‘There’s money at the bottom of this, yes?’

‘In the very long term, maybe. It’s more correcting an ancient injustice.’

‘And what are you going to do with it, immediately board a train and smuggle it across an international border?’

‘Alas no, it goes in matey’s office safe for a few years, until the rest of the world cotton-on to the fact that we control something of real value.’

‘Why do I have to drag along.’

‘Witness. Besides, when you see it, you might just approve of our skulduggery.’

‘Then Eurostar to Paris I presume, or can we go straight through?’

‘Er, no, not on the train we’re going on, besides tomorrow’s hot meal will be taken at the Buffet de la Gare de Lyon.'

‘Another greasy spoon I suppose?'

‘Read the book…'

‘You knew this would get me worked up, the narrow spaces, the moving train. The ladder is just perfect.’ So said Charlie, from the top bunk. ‘Can’t say I care much for our fellow travellers.’

‘Agreed, a dozen unidentifiable tourists, three sad looking businessmen and a couple of our terribly earnest MPs.’ After that brief exchange, we just seemed to be lulled into slumber by the train.

‘Refreshed?’

‘Bloody cold coming back onto the platform’, she said after we’d taken advantage of the showers at Paddington.

‘The sooner we get underground the better.’

We were swept along by the human hush of early commuters and the mechanical cacophony of the train; then, seemingly out of nowhere, Charlotte asked: ‘If I were to get pregnant, what would you do?’

Just as well I had my answer ready; ‘I’d insist that we had a proper church wedding with all the trimmings, 2.4 children and you and your offspring would be made for life.’ The smile was there, full as ever, but of course it told me nothing.

Librarians with pretensions to scholarship, employed by a government agency - we needed the hour and a half I’d allotted, despite having an appointment and with all authorisations in order. Encased by Brutalist architecture, we endured the disapproval of the staff who managed to give the impression we were absconding with their personal property.

Afterwards we repaired at the old St. Pancras booking office, now a café. Our legal companion made an attempt to explain to Charlie what we had purloined. ‘Well it gives title to part of the land at Crawford Park, a part which the Park think they already own, but this specifically refers to a very small worked out mine underneath, which means access to and control of, what was always there underground and indeed what brought mining to an abrupt end; you see, the old adit mine simply ran into an underground spring.’

There was barely a pause before she turned to me; ‘And you want to bottle it?’

‘Well, that may not be economic, but we can easily run a pipe to the clubhouse. Then it is no longer the Park, its Crawford Spa with a capital S.’

‘Water should be free for all.’

‘Try telling that to your local water company, not to mention the manager of the of the filtration plant. You know before this wonderful train shed was turned into a shopping mall, I could have walked up to one of the clerks at the windows in the wood panelling over there, and asked for a ticket on the Midland’s main line, to Buxton via Matlock and Darley Dale. I’d have been travelling to take the cure, to benefit from the healing powers of the waters! In fact, were you and I setting out from Buxton for a walk in the Peak district today, we could fill our water bottles for free from the public fountain. Remind me, how much went on the card for that water you brought us not ten minutes ago?’

In the warm, quite isolation of the carriage, with Charlie sat alongside, I found myself starting to ramble, to free associate on the subject of railways; platform one at Paddington, the old 10,17, the refreshment rooms, Queen Victoria’s waiting room, staying at the old Great Western Royal… Then it was tunnels under London, wartime pilots using Boat Train 1 and Boat Train 2 to navigate by… Ashford, railway town. Railway carriages on ships. The Blue Train. Apple orchards like vineyards, Flanders field, Monet to the west painting trains, Gare St. Lazare.

‘You’re a bit of nerd, in fact more than a bit.’

‘Of course, besides the railways are a network, the Internet of the nineteenth century, especially since most telegraph lines used to run parallel with the tracks. Now then, Le Metro. How to get from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon, using the maximum amount of above ground and elevated track?’

‘I’m reading.’ She’d brought with her volume one of the fourteen volumes of the infamous domestic double act. ‘The young women in these stories are all bonkers, completely away with the fairies. And how can the narrator also be the fool?’

‘Yes, I’ve often wondered about that, it’s there in Sherlock Holmes too from an earlier era, of course then the relationship was the other way round!’

‘Bloody hell!’ exclaimed Charlie after we’d ascended the famous iron staircase with the stone steps and she’d got a glimpse of the salon, the painted walls and ceilings.

‘As long as we get to sit on a bonk-quette, you can have anything on the menu.’

A while later I approached a delicate subject. ‘You’ve been using the camera on your device quite a bit since we left the apartment. We’re going to need a policy regarding photography.’

‘More “impression management”?’

‘Well, up to a point. What do you want the world to know? Bearing in mind that every image has time and place embedded, and as long as you’re connected, you’re hackable!’

‘I always delete the crap ones or the too embarrassing ones immediately.’

‘Very sound.’

‘Everything I’ve taken, of you, us, is on this work phone.’

‘Okay, I suggest we both have to agree before anything is posted.’

‘No problem. What about the revenge porn?’

‘Well, if you can find a way of hiding it, you’re welcome to bring it up in court in twenty years’ time!’

‘We’re not actually on the fastest train are we?’

‘No, we’re on our first Grand Tour together, we travel for learning and pleasure, therefore take the scenic route, and with a bit of luck the sun will be not only lower, but behind us as we approach our destination.’

Once more into a trance; wine regions, varieties of vine, the width of rows, height of vines, type of pruning, spacing of the wires… Lyon and more ruminations on Antoine, the Comte de Saint Exupery... French Popes, funny bridges, the quality of the light and crazy artists, estuaries and wild cattle, men on horseback...